I Will Tell You a Story…

You’ve probably been wondering why I haven’t posted anything about my dolls in 3 months, and when I have, my posts have been few and far between.

In short, I’ve been busy!

In the bittersweet truth, Smile and Craft AG is coming to a conclusion.

But to explain, as well as to celebrate many years of doll fun, let me tell you my story of how my love of American Girl, this blog, and now my departure from it, came to be…

I received Julie, my first American girl doll, when I was 7. I remember looking at an American girl catalog to pick out a doll I liked. I didn’t want a doll that looked like me. Rather, I chose Julie because I thought her clothes were the most modern of the historical dolls! (Interestingly, now I love and prefer the more historical dolls and clothing.)

I had Julie as my only doll for a while. Eventually I decided to get Clara. I tried to pick out a doll that looked like me, and chose “My American Girl” #55 as the closest choice.

Funny fact: I didn’t know about different face molds at that time. I thought that Julie’s (the Josephine face mold) was the only one, so when I got Clara I was surprised at how her face looked! It took me a while to get used to her.

Even though she is my look-alike doll, her personality eventually became probably the most different from me out of all my dolls, besides that she likes arts and crafts.

My next doll was Grace, Girl of the Year 2015, who I picked out at the American Girl Store. She, surprisingly, had my name and looked somewhat like me as well!

Later on, I believe it was in December of 2015, I was at Costco with my mom and saw Caroline being sold there! Caroline was one of the dolls I was interested in getting, and I was ecstatic! I started talking about the possibility of asking for her for Christmas, but soon the excitement wore off and I decided that I didn’t really want her that much.

Then, that Christmas, my grandparents handed me a doll-box-shaped present… and sure enough, it was Caroline! She is such a pretty doll, and I was blessed to be surprised with her.

Somewhere along this line (I think I only had Julie, and possibly Clara, at this point), I met a very good friend who was also into American Girl dolls, and had a few of her own. We would play often. It was through this friendship that I grew in my love for dolls, and even started on the path towards blogging!

We enjoyed making crafts for our dolls, so she introduced me to My Froggy Stuff, which has many amazing craft tutorials and printables for dolls. I would go searching a lot online, scanning the internet for new sites with great crafts. From my searching I became interested in Fun with AG Fan and American Girl Fan. Eventually I started reading these blogs for their posts, and not just the crafts. I chose the pseudonym, Redeemed, when I commented.

Those three blogs became huge inspirations for me to make my blog, Smile and Craft AG. I learned about posting and high quality crafting from them, and finally made the exciting aspiration to create my own blog.

So on June 6, 2016, I made a WordPress account and out came Smile and Craft AG and my very first post, Hello World!

It was exciting gaining readers and seeing comments, as well as finding many new blogs to follow! It has been such a good creative outlet.

At this point, I think I pretty much assumed that I would be blogging indefinitely. I was encouraged by how there were (and are, I’m sure) even adult doll bloggers! Even though I was getting older, dolls were still fun, and I wasn’t planning on “growing out” of them anytime soon. However old you are, dolls can still be a great joy!

But now I realize that though “growing out” of things can have to do with changing interests, it can also, instead, have to do with simply getting busier as you grow up.

Probably big factor in my posting decline has been due to starting early, duel enrollment college classes (during high school) in the fall of 2017. School is busy! Eventually I got a job as well. Posting had to be pushed back, though I still kept it up for another year or so.

And now we come to the present. I haven’t had much motivation to make posts. Even over the summer and Christmas I haven’t posted much. One day, pretty recently, I walked into my closet (where I keep my dolls) and realized that my dolls had been literally gathering dust! Not to mention the doll house has been a huge mess for a long time (poor dolls! 🙂 ). Pretty soon, I’m even planning on going off to university!

I realized that my seasons are changing, and it is time to turn the page and bring my years of doll fun and blogging to a close.

Life flies!

I’ve learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and met many amazing people through this blogging adventure!

Here are a few stats…

Blog Age: 2 years, 9 months

Followers: 303… Thank you so much for 300 followers!!! ♥ ❤ ♥

Posts: 183

Words Written: 73,246

Visitors: 7,126

Views: 16,386

And, of course, I’m not vanishing! I still love reading and interacting on others’ blogs, and I even have a personal blog,Joyful in Hope, that I plan to post on! 🙂 If you haven’t seen this blog yet, you can take a look here!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, probably my last post on Smile and Craft AG. Thank you all for reading, following, commenting, and making my time blogging very blessed! I cherish the memories made here, and hope you have been blessed by this blog as well. 🙂

To conclude, I am so thankful to the Lord for this opportunity and journey that’s made up a piece of my life. I pray that He will bless you all.

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.

Blessings to you, ♥

P.S. Here is a Loooooooooong photo mosaic with photos from all throughout Smile and Craft AG’s blog-life 😉 . How many do you remember?

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21 thoughts on “I Will Tell You a Story…”

This is how you do a goodbye post. Thank you for your contributions to the doll blogging community, Gracie! You are such a sweet and great person. You had an amazing blog here, and I will continue to follow your new one! I do believe this is bittersweet, but you wrapped it up so positively. Thank you so much, again!

I am fairly new to your blog but read every post and I should have commented more often. You are correct we are all on a journey and we all change but then one day you’ll find yourself full circle and just might have that desire to get back into the doll world. I love dolls, have my childhood dolls, dozens of Barbie’s that were my daughters, etc.

Then after not purchasing a new doll for myself, for decades, something lit the spark of wanting to be part of the doll world again. I got my first doll when I was two years old and today purchased my first dolls and I am 70. So though you’ve made the choice to leave and we all understand why, life gets crazy busy, health, life and school get in the way. I hope someday you’ll come back and update even if it’s once a year.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! You are right! Perhaps I will come back someday to update or even get back into dolls. They’ve been such a blessing that I am grateful to have enjoyed, and still appreciate very much! I look forward to one day sharing my dolls and doll things with posterity, and perhaps getting into them again myself.
Thank you, again!!
~Gracie

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gracie, did you read my latest post on Middle Mary??? ( p.s it has something to do with you)

Aww, I definitely understand. It’s so weird because I want to play with my dolls like I used to, but I just can’t. It’s almost like I’ve forgotten or something. I do still have the wonderful memories of playing with them for years though. ❤ I'm glad you'll still be keeping up with your other blog. 🙂

I will certainly miss your posts on here, but I understand your perspective. I’m kind of the same as you in that I haven’t become uninterested in dolls, but I just don’t have much time to do things with them anymore, much less post on my blog. I’ve also found that I have so many more interests now that I’m older, so that affects things as well. Anyway, I hope you are successful with your future endeavors, including college. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog over the past few years, and I hope that every once in a while you bring out your dolls again to dress them and play with them. They’ll thank you for it. 😉 God bless you!

Thank you for commenting, Sassafras! Yes, hopefully I can get them out again every now and then. I at least plan to store them for the future for when someone (perhaps myself or girls after me) can spend time enjoying them again!
Thanks again! And you as well!
~Gracie

Welcome!

Hi there! I'm Gracie, the blogger here at Smile and Craft AG! I'm a teen Christian girl who likes writing, art, and American Girl dolls. You can learn more about me by clicking the image! Enjoy your stay!